The present disclosure relates generally to information handling systems, and more particularly to providing user-friendly warnings for power adapters used with information handling systems.
As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
Some information handling systems such as, for example, mobile computing devices, utilize power adapters that couple the mobile computing systems to power sources and convert power from those power sources to a power level that is appropriate for use in operating the mobile computing system and/or charging the battery for the mobile computing system. Some different mobile computing systems may utilize power adapters that share the same power adapter connectors (which couple the power adapter to the mobile computing device), which can lead to issues with regard to operating the mobile computing devices. For example, some laptop/notebook computing devices utilize 65 watt power adapters (i.e., laptop/notebook computing devices that are designed to operate with 65 watts of power) with power adapter connectors that are also utilized on 40 W power adapters used with tablet computing devices (i.e., tablet computing devices that are designed to operate with 40 watts of power). In such cases, if the 40 W power adapter is used to power the laptop/notebook computing device, that power adapter will not be able to sufficiently power that laptop/notebook computing device. In conventional systems, the use of such insufficiently powered power adapters with mobile computing devices has been dealt with by disabling the power adapter and using battery power in the mobile computing device. However, in situations where there is not sufficient battery power to power the mobile computing device, the battery in the mobile computing device will not charge (i.e., due to the disabling of the power adapter used to charge it) and the mobile computing device will not operate (i.e., due to lack of power). Due to the inability of the mobile computing device to operate in such situations, the only option for alerting the user of the issue with the power adapter is via a light emitting diode (LED) power adapter error indication (e.g., an LED that blinks in a predetermined pattern) on the power adapter. However, users typically do not understand such LED error indications and, as such, situations like those above can lead to service calls and user dissatisfaction.
One conventional solution to the problems discussed above has been to throttle the processing system in the mobile computing device when an insufficiently powered power adapter is used to power the mobile computing device. In some conventional systems, the throttling of the processing system allows the power adapter to provide enough power to the mobile computing device to boot such that power adapter error warning can be displayed on a display device of the mobile computing device. However, power adapters are now being manufactured with power adapter connectors that connect to a wider range of mobile computing devices with a wider range of power requirements, and many mobile computing devices are pushing power requirements ever higher. As such, many opportunities exist for a severely underpowered power adapter to be used with a relatively high power requirement mobile computing device, and such opportunities will result in the inability of the mobile computing device to boot to allow a power adapter error warning to be displayed on the display device of the mobile computing device. In such situations, the only option for alerting the user of the issue with the power adapter is via LED power adapter error indications, which suffer from the deficiencies discussed above.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an improved power adapter warning system.